As Director of the Community Climate Resilience Lab, Dr. Imara Rolston recognizes that the climate crisis is a health emergency that will disproportionally impact racialized communities. Listen to this episode to hear how Imara and his team are bringing together non-profit leaders, grassroots leaders, academics, and policy makers and creating a Toronto-focused Racial Justice Climate Resilience framework. Through this work, they are supporting cites to reckon with historical slavery and colonialism and integrate community-driven solutions. Community outreach worker Diana Chan McNally then reflects on opportunities for public health to improve community engagement efforts.

(00:00) Introduction

(8:09) Interview with Imara Rolston

(40:49) Interview with Diana Chan McNally

Episode Guests: Dr. Imara Ajani Rolston is a social psychologist, policy maker, and Associate Professor and director of the Community Climate Resilience Lab at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Dr. Rolston has contributed to research and publications in the areas of HIV/AIDS, health promotion and community development and has advanced racial justice and urban responses to climate change with the City of Toronto. He has over 15 years of experience working across Sub-Saharan Africa with organizations including the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Oxfam Canada, and Greenpeace Africa. Reflective guest Diana Chan McNally (Dipl. CW, BFA, MA, MEd) is a frontline worker supporting unhoused people in Toronto's downtown east side. As someone with lived experience of social services and homelessness, her work focuses on human rights and equity issues for people without housing, and particularly encampments. She is an alumnus of Maytree Canada and a fellow of the McNally Project for Paramedicine Research.

Learn more:

• Climate Change Resilience Part 2: Public health roles and actions (NCCDH, 2021)
• Keeping It Political and Powerful: Defining the Structural Determinants of Health (Heller et al., 2024)
• Let’s Talk series: Community Engagement, Racism, and Whiteness (NCCDH)

Episode Credits: Production for this episode was led by Pemma Muzumdar and host Bernice Yanful, with contributions from Rebecca Cheff and Carolina Jimenez (NCCDH). The Mind the Disruption project team is led by Rebecca Cheff, with technical production and original music by Chris Perry. Promotion by Caralyn Vossen (NCCDH). Artwork by comet art + design. Sound credit: "Central Park Ambience.aif" by logancircle2 is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Mind the Disruption is a podcast by the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health. NCCDH is hosted by St. Francis Xavier University and funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the PHAC.